Every day's a holiday

This article explores the relationship between physiological sex, social gender, and sexuality (in the sense of sexual interactions) within a 12th century Japanese fictional work. The basic plot (as I’ve assembled it from various parts of the discussion – so I can’t guarantee complete accuracy) is as follows:

• Two children, one physiologically female and one physiologically male exhibit behavior and interests that don’t align with their expected genders.
• After some resistance, their parents agree to raise them as the genders that align with their behavior, not with their physiology.
• The two are socially successful as adults in their behavioral genders, although the mismatch between sex and gender is kept a secret.
• Himegimi (presenting as a man) marries but keeps the relationship non-sexual although he has romantic feelings for his wife as well as for other women.
• Himegimi has a close male friend, Saishō, who initiates (what he believes to be) homosexual erotics. Himegimi is not interested. In the course of this, Saishō discovers Himegimi’s biological sex, at which he rapes Himegimi (putatively due to uncontrollable desire) resulting in pregnancy.
• Himegimi can no longer maintain a male social role and is sequestered by Saishō and pressured to take up a female presentation. After the birth, Himegimi abandons the child and flees.
• The other sibling, Wakagimi, has been living as a woman sequestered in the women’s quarters. She is indifferent to male attempts to seduce her but enjoys a sexual relationship with the princess she serves as companion to and gets her pregnant.
• When Himegimi disappears, Wakagimi decides she must go after, but cannot do so in a female role and so takes up a masculine social role.
• From then on, the two siblings continue in the gender roles that now align with their physiological sex. The various marriage arrangements get sorted out somehow with this new alignment.

Keeping in mind that this is a fictional narrative, the authors discusses various observations about how sex, gender, and sexuality are treated within the tale, as well as noting other ways in which these factors have interacted in fictional and historic narratives.

The tale may be a reworking of an earlier version and is clearly set in a “historic past” relative to the date of composition. This has unknown consequences for determining whether it reflects social attitudes of the composition date, however the gender roles as depicted do align with 12th century court culture. The authors discusses various translations and scholarly studies of the work that introduce modern interpretive frameworks that are more judgmental about the situation than the original text is. Within the text, the siblings’ situation is potentially embarrassing because it’s unusual, not because of the sex/gender elements. A parallel is created with secondary characters who are similarly “unusual” due to their parentage, and whose difference is similarly kept a secret.

The story presents several factors as contributing to gender identity: internal behavioral and temperamental factors (i.e., “behaving like” a boy or girl), which can be modified by personal pragmatic choice (which happens later in the tale, though motivated by external events), fate or destiny affecting birth characteristics (the cause of the siblings’ behavioral preferences is ascribed to a tengu taking revenge for a wrong done in a previous incarnation), and socialization or habit (even after changing gender presentation later in the story, the two siblings retain some attributes of their prior identities due to habit, while in other ways they seamlessly adopt the behaviors of their public gender). Essential factors in establishing and maintaining a gender identity are the clothing and grooming habits assigned to the relevant gender, as well as being granted appropriate ritual signifiers by their parents, such as names and gendered ceremonies.

Behavioral gender is depicted as simultaneously deriving from innate features (their childhood preferences), but also being an automatic consequence of inhabiting a gendered role. When Himegimi is secluded during pregnancy and changes to a female presentation, this is accompanied by the appearance of stereotypically feminine mannerisms and behaviors, as if these were an automatic consequence of putting on the costume.

This is not a story about sexual or gender confusion. The siblings’ childhood behaviors are not ascribed to any physical abnormality. And when they inhabit their various gender roles, they inhabit them fully, not only aligned with social expectations, but exemplars of the role. The only exception being when it comes to aspects of sexual performance where anatomy becomes a factor.

The article critiques earlier studies of the narrative that try to shoehorn it into modern western gender and sexuality frameworks. Although claimed by modern Japanese homosexual movements as an early example of homosexual literature, the situation is both more complicated and simpler. Rather than being subversive or decadent, the tale is strikingly conservative and normative.

The article then explores other stories with similar themes. Another 12th century tale (possibly influenced by this one) involves a physiologically female child raised as a boy due to divine instruction. The character succeeds socially as a man, attains high rank, marries a woman, but then switches to a completely feminine presentation, eventually becoming empress. As in the previous story, although there is misalignment between physiological sex and gender identity during part of the story, the gender performance in each case is aligned with social expectations. This contrasts with mythological and fictional stories involving partial or complete cross-dressing that isn’t aligned with the public gender identity. In these cases the cross-gender performance is usually temporary and to provide the character with empowerment (and primarily involve women adopting male signifiers). In other cases, this sort of overt gender-crossing is presented for humorous purposes. While the preceding involve unambiguous sex (physiology) but ambiguous gender (performance), medical and historic literature includes cases of ambiguous sex (generally interpretable as intersex, from a modern framework) but an unambiguous performance of a specific gender. The author found no narratives in which sexual ambiguity was combined with gender ambiguity.

The sexuality dynamics within the story are complicated and tricky to judge from within the story’s own ethical/moral basis, and later scholarship has often interpreted them from anachronistic frameworks. As the author notes, “If ‘homosexuality’ is taken to mean sexual relations between two males/men or two females/women, each cognizant of the other’s sex and gender, then ‘homosexuality’ does not exist in the world of Torikaebaya.” However there are erotics between people of the same sex and between people of the same gender, but not both at the same time. Himegimi is frequently involved in same-(physiological)-sex relations while in male gender. Wakagimi is not, as gender-segregation practices meant that she did not socialize with physiolocial men. Himegimi has an arranged marriage to a woman (same sex, different gender) but keeps the relationship platonic (presumably to avoid detection). Himegimi is attracted to a number of other women. These relationships involve the formulas and rituals of a sexual relationship without the sex acts. (In an echo of what I call the “convenient twin brother” motif, several of these women later have sexual relationships with Wakagimi after he takes up a masculine gender, and don’t notice the difference.) All these female partners believe themselves to be in a cross-gender relationship, although the reader of the tale knows them to be same-sex.

Somewhat in contrast, Wakagimi attracts the erotic attention of various men (cross-gender, same-sex), but refuses them. It isn’t clear whether this is Wakagimi avoiding a same-sex relationship or following the mores for a virtuous woman. The question is further confused by Wakagimi’s sexual relationship with the princess (cross-sex, same-gender) in which the princess is apparently naïve enough not to realize what’s going on. A similarly complicated situation occurs when Saishō, still enamored of Himegimi, sees male-presenting Wakagimi and pursues him believing him to be male-presenting Himegimi. That is, Saishō believes the encounter to be cross-sex, same-gender, while Wakagimi understands it as same-sex, same-gender. Same-gender desire is an inherent part of the cultural context. Saishō is initially attracted to male-presenting Himegimi and initiates a sexual encounter under that understanding—one which Himegimi tries to reject. (It strikes me that the protagonists both resist male same-gender interactions. Himegimi refrains from female same-gender sex, but Wakagimi does not. It feels like there are some gendered undercurrents going on, but I’m not confident enough to put interpretation on it. The author makes similar speculations about cultural attitudes toward male versus female desire.)